No Other Choice
by ninepen
Summary: Sometimes, when the stakes are extraordinarily high, you have to do something unthinkable. Sometimes, you see no other choice. "Is it more dangerous than wiping out fifty percent of all people in the universe?" (AKA: Infinity War Fix-It)
1. Chapter 1

_For your decision-making ("To read or not to read...") purposes: This story features Jane Foster as a key character, too; she isn't listed because she's not available on this site as an "Avengers" character (update: she's been added, yay!). It features a large cast from the MCU, far too many to list, but most are in more minor roles. It takes place after Infinity War. I wanted Loki to have a bigger role...and, you know, not be dead, so...I started writing. Please bear in mind: This is, generally speaking, not a story about happy people; it gets very dark. A few more notes follow at the end._

_**No Other Choice**_

-1-

"We're going to need more help," Bruce said, looking from Tony to Shuri in the large, otherwise empty conference room. These days, everything felt large and empty. "This isn't my area of expertise. And frankly, it isn't either of yours, either."

"Definitely not," Shuri agreed. "But it isn't _anyone's_ area of expertise. We each have unique skills. We have knowledge, we have technology…right now what we need most is creative thinking."

"Actually this _is_ some people's area of expertise. The top four names I checked, two were direct deaths, a third was in an airplane that crashed into the Atlantic, a fourth died in a freak looting incident, somebody desperate for a prescription he couldn't get…it got ugly," Tony said, cutting himself off from dredging up the details of the news report he'd read right before this meeting. The chaos that had followed The Snap, that still followed it just one month later, had pushed the death rate beyond Thanos's intended 50%.

"Who specializes in this?" Okoye said, standing near the door in her uniform. She wasn't really here for the meeting but rather as a protective guard – the complicated issue of Wakanda's succession had yet to be determined and until then Princess Shuri was ruling in consultation with her mother and representatives of the other tribes. "It's not the realm of science. It's science fiction." Three heads turned her way. She pursed her lips. "Forget I said that."

"I just got here three days ago on a spaceship that belonged to a guy from Missouri who was kidnapped as a kid by a blue pirate and traveled the galaxy mostly stealing stuff, from what I've gathered. The pilot of said spaceship was a blue lady who's not super talkative but who I _think_ is more cyborg than flesh and blood even though she still gets really grumpy when she's hungry, which she was a lot of the time because Thor, space Viking from a planet called Asgard, apparently took most of the rations from the spaceship before he headed off to Nidavellir to-"

"Did you miss the part where I said, 'Forget I said that'?"

"No. Just ignoring it. More fun. Look, Shuri's right, we're going to have to think creatively. I don't know what the line is between science fiction and science fact is anymore. Until recently, this was science fiction. Now? We know it's not."

"We could look more closely at those four. Maybe they had research assistants working with them. Were they all physicists?" Bruce asked.

"Yep. Three astrophysicists and…"

"And what?" Shuri prompted.

"And I just had an idea. Not her specialization, either, but an astrophysicist who's not afraid to blow up the box and get creative. Has anyone heard from Jane Foster?"

/

* * *

/

"Tony? Oh my God, Tony, is that really you? I thought you were dead!"

"Hey, sweetheart, it's good to hear your voice, too. Having some communications problems down there? I showed up in a spaceship a couple of days ago, I'm pretty sure that was front-page news."

"You don't know the half of it. We were all over the shortwaves in the beginning, but now…we don't have time for much news. It's…it's a real struggle, Tony. We lost our engineer, our doctor. We have limited internet connectivity and even the sat phones have been unreliable, and last week we had a problem with the main generator…not a big one but it was up to me to fix it and we kept losing the satellite connection and… Tony, the National Science Foundation said they can't do anything to help us. The military said they can't do anything to help us. Not until October at the earliest. That's five months away. There were fifty of us and we're down to twenty-seven. I still have Maria Hill's number, I left messages on her voicemail but…she must not have made it. I called you, too, and I just assumed…. Tony…is there _anything_ you can do?"

"Yeah, calm down, Jane, it's okay. I'm sure I can modify a suit so it can make it to the South Pole in austral winter, but hold on a sec."

Jane put a hand over the phone and looked around her. All twenty-six of the other Polies had crowded into Comms by now. "He says he thinks he can help." Tears gathering in a few eyes was enough to leave Jane drawing in a shaky breath and brushing the back of her hand across her own eyes.

"Jane, you there?"

"I'm not going anywhere."

"About that…how about if I send a whole ship to pick you up? Two of them, perfectly capable of getting to the South Pole, and bringing every single one of you back."

/

* * *

/

"Hey, Shuri? Is Friday up and running yet?" Tony asked when he hung up the phone.

"I think so. We just needed to convert the program and replicate it onto our systems. I set it for primary mode voice activation, but it will be integrated into our technology as well if you want to access it that way. Friday, are you there?"

"I am, Princess Shuri. Boss, it's good to be back."

"_Yes._ Don't poke fun, Friday, but I've missed you."

"I've missed you too."

"That would mean _so_ much more if I hadn't programmed you to say it, but I'll take it anyway. Friday, did you log calls from Jane Foster while I was lost in space?"

"Yes, sir. Dr. Foster tried to reach you at two of your numbers. She made forty-one attempts."

/

* * *

/

"Have you told Thor yet?"

Tony shook his head.

"You need to tell him."

"They broke up, babe."

"I know, but from what you've said…maybe it would do him some good."

They lay cuddled together on a sofa in the apartment Shuri's people had provided, a large beautifully-appointed apartment that had belonged to some important person who had disintegrated into dust. There was nowhere to look without being reminded of what had been lost.

"Maybe," Tony murmured noncommittally. "To be honest…I dread seeing him again."

Pepper pressed a kiss to his cheek and snaked a hand around his back, pulling him more tightly against her.

"Babe…"

"Mm-hm?"

"Do you ever just want to quit?"

"And do what instead?"

"I don't know. Maybe sign up for one of those 'Feed the World' volunteer farmhand schemes. Maybe go see some famous sites. I bet the lines are a lot shorter these days."

"You don't do lines anyway, and I really can't see you doing farm work."

"Maybe just…settle down somewhere, some small town, live a quiet life, just you and me. Pretend the rest of the world, the rest of the universe, doesn't even exist?"

Pepper sighed. "No. And neither do you, Tony. Not really."

"I know. Doesn't hurt to imagine it once in a while, though. There's just…there's only so much you can take, you know? That whole trip back to Earth…I didn't know if you…if you would be here. And you were, and I was so grateful, I _am_ so grateful, you have no idea. And then I had to go see May Parker…God help me part of me was hoping she didn't survive. And I had to tell her that her kid was dead." He wasn't in any pain, he'd told her. Tony didn't know if that was really true or not. He did know that Peter had been scared, had died in fear. May had blamed him. He couldn't argue; he blamed himself.

"I didn't think I'd ever see you again. I didn't think I'd ever be happy again, after everything that happened. But I am. Because you're here. So please don't do this to yourself, Tony. You've saved so many, but you can't save everybody. I know you wanted to. And even if you never tell me exactly what happened while you were gone, I know you did everything you could."

Tony nodded, then untangled himself from Pepper and sat up, looping his fingers through hers as she sat up with him. "You're right. And it wasn't enough. Half of the _universe_, Pep, I still can't get that through my head. And you're also right that I can't quit. Even when I want to. Maybe there's still something more I can do."

/

* * *

_Notes_

Continuing from above with a few things that are more in-the-weeds...

This story isn't related to any of my others. To the extent that you know my other work on here and see overlap in some details, such as a setting associated with Jane in this chapter, this is me "cheating." I am trying (trying!) to write this story in as quick a manner as possible. By that I don't mean I'll finish it before _Endgame_, definitely not, no matter how badly I wish I could. I just mean that, rather than coming up with some new setting and rationalizing why Jane is there (for example), I'm just going to reuse one from another story. It's not an important detail to this story, just a time-saving measure.

I am sorry...sort of...for releasing this. :-) I resisted for a long time, waffled for a long time. I _really_ shouldn't, not when I have others in-progress and this is not a "short story." (I have an enabler who said "Release it," you know who you are!) :-) The thing is, there is a deadline coming in the form of Endgame's release, after which I'm not sure if I'll have the passion for this story that I do now. I started writing this shortly after Infinity War came out, and tried to take into account what few details we had available about Endgame at the time, such as those leaked set photos that strongly suggest time travel to the time when Loki was a prisoner on the helicarrier. But already it's frustrating to see Shuri confirmed dead via promo art when I had decided to write her in as among the survivors. (I wrote this pre-Ant-Man & the Wasp, and included Wasp...haven't decided yet if I will keep her or write her out.) Also, I didn't know anything about Captain Marvel at the time, so she's not in here. Separately, there is not only my love for Loki at play, but also my love for plumbing the depths of emotional darkness (if this floats your boat I'm going to predict you're in the right place), and...there are some moments in here where I'm pleased with the writing. And all that makes me want badly to share it and not let it sit collecting virtual dust. So, for those who hear "plumbing the depths of emotional darkness" and get a big excited SMILE on their face, ha, I hope you will enjoy this for what it is, and hang in there, because although I have several chapters' worth written at this point, I do anticipate big time lags down the line. (3/28/19)


	2. Chapter 2

_**No Other Choice**_

**-2-**

"Tony!" Jane cried the second the Wakandan aircraft's hanger door opened wide enough for her to see him. She jumped from the ramp before it was quite lowered all the way and threw herself into his arms, hugging for all she was worth and shedding the tears she'd told herself she wouldn't. She barely knew him.

"Hey, watch it there, kiddo," Tony said once Jane let up. "Pepper's here, I don't want to create any waves." He cracked a smile and pulled her into a side hug, leading her away from the ship and straight into a dense city center.

"I can't wait to see her, too. I'm sorry, it's just…everything has changed, and we became a second family to each other at the Pole but I'm so happy to see people I knew from before. Thank you so much, Tony. And the government of Wakanda. The pilots must have gotten tired of hearing all of us say thank you after the first hour or two. Will I get a chance to thank whoever agreed to send the jets?"

"Oh, I think you will. It'll keep 'til tomorrow, though. Everything's settled down at the Pole now?"

"Yeah. For some it was a hard decision, but in the end sixteen of them left on the other jet. The volunteers Wakanda sent will help keep everything up and running in the meantime. Most of the people at the station lost loved ones, and even if they didn't… It's just a long time to be away from family when…"

"Yeah. I get it. Listen, Jane, there's someone else here you know, someone I _think_ you'll be glad to see."

Jane's eyes went wide, hope she hadn't allowed herself to feel for some time welling up in her again. Tony had said he wanted her to come here to discuss her research, and that could mean… "Erik? Did you find Erik? Is it him?"

"Uh…no. Sorry."

Jane deflated, the burst of hope gone as quickly as it had come. "Oh. Okay," she said in a subdued voice.

"I'll see what I can do. Is he still teaching in London?"

"Yeah," Jane answered. "I called and called. I finally reached his department. Talked to one of the other professors. She said they found…some dust. In his office. By the door. It could have been anyone, really," she hastened to add. "But no one's seen him since then, so…"

Tony nodded. "I'll run some searches."

"Thanks," she said, mustering a weak smile. She knew Erik was dead. She knew Tony knew Erik was dead. But she wasn't ready to admit it out loud yet, and it was kind of Tony to allow her that.

Leaving the sidewalk, they went through glass doors overlaid with thick twisting carved wooden vines. Jane registered it absently, then remembered what Tony had said and started looking around with more interest.

"So who's here, then?" she finally asked. They'd come to a stop in a long carpeted corridor after a walk through a lobby and a ride in an elevator.

"Believe it or not, it's actually our old friend the god of thunder."

"Thor? Thor?! I had no idea he was even on Earth! We heard there was a big battle here, of _course_ he was here. Where else would he be?"

"I heard he proved yet again that nobody knows how to make an entrance like he does. But Jane, listen, he's, uh, he's kind of been in bad shape, and-"

"He was wounded? How bad?"

"No, no, not wounded. Just…well, you can see for yourself. Seeing you might do him some good. He doesn't know you're here, though. I should have told him, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Sorry."

"It's okay."

"You've got a room set up somewhere, same building. Your bags have been taken there. Take this. Wakandan phone. Their technology's a little different but you won't have any problem with it. My number's in there, and Pepper's, and a few emergency numbers just in case. Call me when you're done here – this is his apartment – and we'll talk. Doesn't matter how late. Don't feel like you need to rush, take as much time as you want. Even if it's not until tomorrow, okay?"

"Sure, okay. Tony…thanks again."

/

* * *

/

Jane knocked, waited, knocked, waited. Four times she knocked. She was pretty sure Tony wouldn't have dropped her off here, though, if he wasn't sure Thor was actually in.

In the end, she tried the door, and was relieved if surprised to find it unlocked.

Inside, it was a wreck. Thor's place made hers look like Martha Stewart ran it. Clothes and random other things, but mostly plates and bowls and glasses and bottles. So many bottles. Including lots of broken ones. It was dark – no lights were on and the curtains were closed – so it was hard to see all of even the bigger shards. She stepped carefully, glad for the thick-soled boots she wore.

"You can leave it on the counter," came a voice from down a short corridor. A familiar voice.

"Thor? Um…it's Jane."

A door opened, cracking more light into the dark hallway. A tall figure stepped out. When he emerged into the living room and turned on a light, Jane gasped. If she hadn't been told this was Thor's apartment, if she hadn't just heard his voice, she wasn't sure she would have recognized him. His hair was short, and his right eye was…missing, she was pretty sure. His beard was scraggly and trapped crumbs. His shoulders were stooped, but his chest was as chiseled as ever – he wore nothing but a pair of leather pants that wasn't quite laced up all the way.

"Jane?"

She snapped out of her shock. "Yeah. Hi."

"Is it really you? I'm not imagining you?"

"It's really me."

He covered the remaining distance between them and wrapped his arms around her, tightly for a moment, then more loosely, to pull back and look down at her. For an instant, she felt he was staring at her the way someone lost in the desert must stare at an oasis right before diving in. She put her hands on his shoulders and nudged, just a bit. "Um…"

Thor glanced down at himself. "I, ah…sorry. Just…give me a minute?"

"Of course."

While Thor disappeared back down the hall, Jane went over to the couch and started clearing away the remains of half-eaten meals and a stained blanket. By the time he came out – this time with a long-sleeved black shirt that had one multi-colored band running all down the right arm, a black patch over his eye, beard free of crumbs – there was room on the couch for both of them to sit.

Thor did so, awkwardly. "You may have to remind me a few more times that you're real."

"As many times as you need. I'm real. How are you? I didn't know you were on Earth."

"I'm fine. And you? I asked about you, after it happened. No one knew where you were."

"I was in a pretty remote location. And ever since New York, well, it's been made clear to me that it's better if I don't broadcast where I am to the whole world."

"New York. Yes." Thor paused, gaze growing distant. "It seems so long ago now. Just a few years ago."

Jane shifted her position, feeling on edge. She'd never seen Thor like this. So quiet. So restrained. Awkward even, as though he was uncomfortable in his own body, when she'd probably never met anyone _more_ comfortable with his body than Thor was. "So…how's Asgard? Have you been back there since…since it happened?"

"I…no. No, I haven't…. Jane…Asgard was destroyed. The realm is no more."

"What do you mean? Destroyed?"

"It's a long story."

"I have time."

Thor looked away. Nodded. "So do I. Time is all I have, now."

* * *

_Notes_

For some reason, no matter how many times I add it back in, the image for this story keeps disappearing. Hopefully just a momentary glitch that will be resolved.


	3. Chapter 3

_**No Other Choice**_

-3-

"_The ship was destroyed. I alone survived."_

He didn't weep. He didn't seem interested in comfort, though Jane was ready to give it, what little she could. Breakups were never easy, but by the time theirs had happened it had seemed almost inevitable. They'd split on friendly terms, and whatever chasm separated them now, it wasn't any sense of unease between them.

He continued from the ship's destruction, outlining in terse, general statements how he'd joined forces with a rabbit – Jane didn't interrupt even to question _that_ – to have a new weapon forged, how he'd used it to travel to Earth and join in the battle in Wakanda, how he'd nearly stopped Thanos, but had buried his ax in the villain's chest because he'd wanted to look Thanos in the eye as he died. Then Thanos had snapped his fingers, and Thor's every effort had been for nothing. Half of all sentient life, in the entire universe – not just Earth as Jane had assumed, as everyone on Earth assumed, she figured – had been obliterated in an instant.

"I'm sorry. I should have offered you a drink." Thor hopped up and headed over to the refrigerator with more energy than she'd seen him display thus far. "I have, ahhh, a blue bottle, a clear bottle, and some smaller brown bottles. Oh! And there's this one here on the counter that bears an image of a creature called an elephant."

"An elephant? Um, okay. I'll try that." She was in Africa, after all. Her first time. She'd hardly even thought about it thus far.

"Oh. I, ah…I think I'm out of clean glasses. I don't suppose you…no, you wouldn't. Hold on." He rummaged through his cabinets, and a minute later returned with a blue bottle and a champagne flute filled with a milky white liquid from the elephant bottle. He handed her the flute.

She sipped it warily; it obviously wasn't champagne. Some kind of cream-based liqueur, sweet, not bad. She looked up from her glass to see Thor had just downed about half the contents of whatever bottle he'd brought back. She set her glass down in a cleared spot among the dirty dishes on the coffee table. "Thor…you said you alone survived. You don't mean…_literally_ you alone?"

"I do," Thor answered after nodding several times.

"But…so…everybody from Asgard?"

"Asgard is a people, not a place," Thor said, before breaking into quiet laughter. "The place no longer exists. I told you that part, right?"

Jane nodded. As far as she could tell, he really wasn't sure he had.

"We sent some of them away on smaller ships at the start of the attack. We had no way to defend ourselves against a ship like that…an enemy like that. I had no way to defend them."

"Okay, so you _weren't_ the only survivor."

"No one has seen or heard from them since. I was the only one who survived the final explosion. I was the only one alive _before_ the explosion."

"They could still be out there, then."

"Perhaps."

"Who was with them?"

Thor stared down at the bottle in his hand. "No one you knew. Mostly women and children. A handful of warriors to try to protect them."

"But what about…"

Thor put the bottle to his lips and craned his head back.

"What about Heimdall?"

He swallowed, then sniffed. "Heimdall was gravely wounded. He sent the Hulk back to Earth before he was stabbed in the heart."

Jane nodded, slowly. Heimdall had been the first to welcome her to Asgard, when she otherwise hadn't felt terribly welcomed. She took a moment to work up to the question she now feared most. "What about Loki?"

Thor looked everywhere but at her, then brought the bottle back to his lips and downed the rest. "Thanos snapped his neck and threw his dead body in front of me. I held onto him during the explosion. He was all I had left. I was all he had left. I couldn't let him go." He paused to sniff again, harder this time. His eye was glassy with unshed tears. He shrugged. "I don't know how long it took, but I lost consciousness out there, in the floating wreckage. He drifted away from me. Or I drifted away from him. I suppose it's all the same. When I woke, he was gone."

/

* * *

/

"I thought _I_ was an emotional wreck after what happened."

It was late. Jane had called, asked if it was too late, but Tony wasn't sleeping well and Pepper gladly threw on leggings and a T-shirt and greeted a dazed Jane with a hug. They sat now in the living room, each with spiked hot chocolate and a slice of pumpkin tea loaf.

"Everybody's been an emotional wreck, Jane," Pepper said in her comforting tone. "We're all dealing with it in our own way."

"Or not dealing with it," Tony put in.

"I just…I can hardly fathom what he's been through. He's lost his entire family. His entire people."

"He got dealt a rough hand. But we've _all_ been through a lot," Tony said, leaning forward and focusing on Jane. "Thor…there's nothing he can do now. He's strong, he's persistent. But all the strength in the universe can't change what happened."

"No. I'm sure that's part of it. He must feel so helpless, and he's not used to that."

"Us, on the other hand…"

"Us?"

"I hit the gym. I have an image to uphold. Young whippersnappers to keep up with. But let's be honest, what I do? It's not about strength. Same for you. Same for Bruce. When he's not a giant green rage monster. Same for Wakanda's Princess Shuri, King T'Challa's kid sister. You're going to like her. She reminds me of me when I was younger."

"Tony," Pepper said with a put-upon sigh.

"Well, she does."

"You've lost me, Tony. Maybe I'm just tired. Thrown off by the time difference. Seeing Thor like that…. I should probably let you both get to bed, and try to get some sleep myself."

"You've had a long day. You _should_ get some sleep. But I want to leave you with this. Not all of us are helpless right now. Some of us…we want to do something about it."

"Do what? Track down Thanos? It's too late, isn't it? I mean…they're gone. Or am I missing something?"

"No. They're gone. But we think maybe we can fix it. Change it. Undo it."

"Undo it…I don't think I can do this right now. It's still too raw, Tony. And this is-"

"Time travel."

Jane glanced at Pepper. "Time travel," she repeated flatly.

"Uh-huh. Time travel. Don't look like that. Jane, you already knew it was theoretically possible. Now we know it's _actually_ possible. I watched a man sit right in front of me and use a glowing green stone to travel to the future. Others saw it used to turn back time. We just have to figure out how to do it, too."

"Okay," Jane said, standing. "This is…. Okay," she started again. "Yes, I'm familiar with theories of time travel. Not how to physically _do_ time travel, but theoretically how it might work, and how it might affect the people involved and even the rest of the universe, depending on which theory you subscribe to. It's physics. Physics with a dose of philosophy. And the one thing I can tell you with certainty is that it's incredibly dangerous. Going into it blind…you have no idea what the effects of it could be, either the immediate or the secondary effects. Domino effects."

"Jane?" Tony said, setting his plate down and standing, too.

"What?"

"Is it more dangerous than wiping out 50% of all people in the universe?"

Jane didn't answer, but Tony knew the question had struck home.

They needed Jane. Tony could read and follow the literature, and so could Shuri and Bruce, but Jane was an actual astrophysicist, and an open-minded, creative one. Jane could _write_ the literature.

Jane was frowning, eyes distant. Thinking. If they could be so lucky, she was gaining hope. It was the key intangible third ingredient, alongside expertise and creativity. If they'd brought her here only for her to withdraw and sit around in a daze drinking all day like Thor, well, at least they'd helped her leave her research station so she could maybe start dealing with Erik Selvig's loss.

Not that he'd give up that quickly. He'd stayed calm, kept his voice deliberately soft; he didn't want to cast this as an argument. It was a lot to take in, and it was Jane's decision. But if she said she wanted no part in it, then after she got some rest he'd tell her more and try again.

It had seemed crazy to him at first, too. After all, Stephen Strange had had the time stone. They had nothing. Nothing but him, Bruce, Shuri, and now, with any luck, Jane, and all the creativity and experience and genius they brought to the table.

"That's not a bad point," she finally said. Her tone was reticent…but in her eyes flashed a spark he knew well. That spark wouldn't exist without hope to set it alight.

Jane was in. Tony was certain of it, even if Jane herself wasn't.

"We'll talk more tomorrow. Sleep as late as you want, make phone calls, whatever you need to do. Call me when you're ready."

A minute later Pepper left with Jane to show her to her new Wakandan digs.

Tomorrow they would get to work.

Tonight, maybe sleep would come a little easier.

* * *

_Notes_

Random background note: The bottle with the elephant on it is Amarula. I figure Wakanda would have its own domestic products but would also import some familiar brands. (Amarula is a South African product.)


	4. Chapter 4

_**No Other Choice**_

-4-

_Seven months later_

"If you have more questions, I'll answer them as best I can," Wong said from the other side of the portal. "The flow of time must not be carelessly tampered with, but I fear for our defenses against other dimensions that may seek to invade our own now that it is weakened. Do what you feel you must. Whatever you decide in the end, though…I think I would prefer not to know."

The others exchanged glances. Wong wasn't alone in his concern; they all shared it to varying degrees. All except Tony. "We understand," Tony said. "And thanks."

Wong nodded, and the portal lost cohesion and he faded from view.

"We can do this," Tony said, turning to face the others. They now had a complete scan of every record in Kamar-Taj's holdings on the time stone, also known as the Eye of Agamotto, and the fluidity of time in general, from an entire book on the subject to fragmentary documents to minor indirect mentions.

"I don't know," Bruce said. "I started skimming through the _Book of Cagliostro_ already, and…this isn't physics. It's not physics, and it's not network engineering and it's not chemistry and…it's not _science_. The four of us, we may come at this from different angles. But at the heart of it we all speak the same language. _This_ is a language I don't speak," he said, holding out a hard copy of the book for emphasis.

Shuri reached out and took the bound printout from Bruce. "I don't know about you, but _I_ speak more than one language," she said with that bright undaunted smile of hers.

Tony didn't know how she did it; her smile was _always_ undaunted. She had lost family and friends, too. The resilience of the young, perhaps. Or maybe it was just a mask she never lowered. She also liked one-upping him, in a friendly rivalry they had going. "Um, yeah, so do I. But I don't think French is going to make reading this any easier. What about you, Bruce? Jane? Random language skills we should know about?"

"One year of German for reading, two years of high school Spanish," Jane said with disinterest, picking up another copy of the book and flipping through it.

"German, Latin, conversational Hindi," Bruce said. "What did foreign languages have to do with this again?"

"It was a metaphor, Tony," Shuri said with a teasing grin. "I know you know that. Science, math, engineering, it's one type of language. This, I think, is another. The kind that requires your spiritual side."

"Okay…well, I don't think I have one of those. I don't believe in God," Bruce said.

"That's a little arrogant there, don't you think, Bruce?"

"Really, Tony?" Bruce said, eyebrows stretching upward.

Tony laughed. They were all feeling a little punch-happy, after a period of frustration and limited progress. "I believe in God, but 'spiritual' isn't exactly the first word I'd use to describe myself. But I'm ready to try anything. So, what, do we call in a priest or something?"

Shuri shook her head. "I don't think it's necessarily about what you believe about the sacred. Maybe it's envisioning what's bigger than you. Beyond you. _Greater_ than you."

Bruce's whole face squinted up. "See, yeah, I don't get that. I mean, I _get_ that, but…I don't get how to understand a book about 'mystic arts' by thinking about what's greater than me."

"That's not normally the way I read, either," Jane said. "But I think there may be something to it. You heard what Wong said, that Dr. Strange had a hard time letting go of…of the natural world. The usual way of thinking about things. Somehow we have to…I don't know, open ourselves up to new ways of looking at the world. New types of perception. The _super_natural world. Metaphors instead of formulas. Magic."

"Exactly," Shuri said.

"Okay," Bruce agreed, "but this isn't about achieving enlightenment. We have a practical, concrete goal. Even if we do figure out how to make sense of these writings…how do we translate that into building a time travel machine?"

"I have no idea. But we won't know until we try. And trying to read this," Shuri said, pointing to the open book in Jane's hand, "in the language of math and science won't get us anywhere."

Tony took a quick breath, decision made. "Maybe Wong can recommend some texts or…chants or something, to help put us in touch with our spiritual selves. And Pepper used to do yoga and meditation. I'll ask her for some tips. Prayers? Couldn't hurt."

"Yoga and meditation?" Bruce said. "If that counts…Tony, I can lead a master class in that."

"Perfect. So we're all in, then? We're going to approach this from every angle, open minds? Whatever it takes?" Tony asked.

"Whatever it takes," Jane repeated after voicing her agreement with the others. She'd half-expected a joke about LSD or magic mushrooms, but it didn't come. Tony had changed, too, of course, but every now and then she forgot.

/

* * *

/

They were missing an angle. They were missing a person. Jane hadn't had much of a chance to talk to Thor – much less to Loki – about Loki's magic. But even in the little she'd learned from Wong, as well as from Bruce and Tony, who had observed Dr. Strange, she was certain that the magic they used was different from what Loki used. Or maybe it was just in how they used it. She wondered what Loki would make of those writings on the mystic arts and manipulation of time. She wondered if he would find them just as confusing, or if he would speak their language better than the rest of them were thus far.

She looked over at Thor. As often happened, when Jane came over in the evening and put on a movie for them to watch, his eyes were glazed over. She paused the movie, then gently nudged his shoulder. "Hey, Thor? Can I ask you something?"

"Of course," he answered, pulling himself out of the haze with visible effort. "Anything, Jane."

"If you don't want to talk about it, it's okay. But…what can you tell me about how Loki used magic?"

/

* * *

/

It didn't go well. Thor, it turned out, understood little about magic, Loki's or otherwise. Loki had understood it. Thor had considered it a lesser skill, one less worthy of praise on the battlefield despite the fact that it had saved both of their lives more than once, and thus hadn't ever made much of an effort to learn. Jane had seen Loki use magic with her own eyes when he had – with a disturbing level of enthusiasm – pretended to cut off Thor's hand on Svartalfheim. Asked how he did it, though, Thor could only speak of manipulation of energy, a particular type of sensitivity shared by few, and power imbued through Asgard, or maybe his father, or maybe the heart of a dying star. There had once been libraries, enormous collections both digital and print, but those had been lost along with everything else in the destruction of Asgard. Asgard's knowledge of magic was gone.

It didn't take long to devolve into rambling. It didn't take much longer than that for Thor to drift off in some unspoken memory, then suddenly apologize and say he wasn't feeling well and wanted to go to bed.

Jane left.

/

* * *

/

"Wait."

"What?" Tony said. Soon Shuri and Jane were looking Bruce's way, too, while Bruce's head was still buried in his copy of the _Book of Cagliostro_. Bruce kept going back to it; Tony found it maddening and all the meditation in the world didn't seem likely to help.

"Page seventy-five. He's describing a staircase. In a _lot_ of detail."

"I remember it," Shuri said. "I thought he was describing descending into different levels of hell, similar to Dante's _Inferno_."

"That's what I thought, too. But look at it again. What if this is a depiction of quantum physics?"

Tony remembered the passage, too. He might not _understand_ any of it – frustrating because he really wasn't used to that – but he remembered it. "That's possible. He could be writing about energy level scales. Even couching it in imagery that deliberately draws on Dante. Cagliostro's eighteenth century. Dante's fifteenth."

Jane, meanwhile, had stood and gone to Bruce's side to look at the text. "This could be quantization. But then…this next passage…. Are any of you familiar with Hank Pym's work?"

"The Hank Pym who invented the suit? The suit that guy Cap brought to Berlin, that he used to wreck up _my_ suit?"

Three blank faces stared back at him.

"I forgot. You weren't there for that one."

/

* * *

/

Hank Pym had turned to dust, sitting at his kitchen table over a newspaper and a cup of coffee which had spilled and mingled with the dust to resemble coffee grounds.

His daughter, Hope van Dyne, was well-versed in his work and bursting at the seams to help. Her palpable energy in their conference calls refueled the eagerness that had begun to wane in the rest of them, as the months had dragged on with little progress.

Scott Lang, who Hope said was now the only person alive who'd been to the quantum realm, was less eager. More to the point, he'd refused.

"He paid a heavy price for going to Berlin. He says he has to put his daughter first now," Hope told them during their third conference call.

The jet that departed for San Francisco to bring Hope to Wakanda carried Steve, Shuri, and Jane, to convince him to change his mind.

/

* * *

/

Thor jerked upright, startled from sleep by the tune on his phone – "Thunder," by a group called Imagine Dragons. Tony had happily told him he'd made the phone play that song when he provided it instead of the Wakandan communication beads Thor preferred not to wear. He wasn't fond of the phone, either, but at least it didn't have to remain affixed to his body. The tune started over and he remembered the whole point of it was that he had to respond to it. "Yes, hello? This is Thor."

"'Bout time, Blackbeard. I was about to send out a search party. You're going to want to get out to Unity Square, you know, the big open area where the VIP jets land."

"Why?" Thor asked, looking down at his bare chest. He'd been trying to read a book on the sofa in front of the hidden television, but fell asleep. He wasn't prepared for meeting any "VIPs."

"A ship's on approach. A spaceship. I'm telling you, get moving. _Now._"

Thor held out his hand and opened his palm to drop the phone; Stormbreaker leapt into it instead and his armor took shape around him as he stood. The balcony provided the most direct route, so he pounded across the floor to it and took flight toward the main square.

The ship was already descending to land when he arrived; he thrust Stormbreaker skyward and drew down lightning.

"Woah woah woah woah!" Tony shouted, racing toward him as the new magic-like version of his armor sealed him in, covering all but his face. "No lightning! I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you didn't finish listening to me on the phone. The ship's not a target."

"It isn't Thanos?" Thor asked, still drawing lightning but making no move to direct it at the ship.

"No. Thanos doesn't need a ship, not anymore. That ship's not carrying enemies. It's carrying survivors."

"What survivors?" he asked. He was finding it difficult to let go of the idea that he had been gifted another chance to destroy Thanos, but he did manage to lower Stormbreaker and let the gathered lightning dissipate, much of it absorbed into his own body.

Tony's suit retracted again. "Asgardians."


	5. Chapter 5

_**No Other Choice**_

-5-

The ship landed and then lowered itself further, so that when the hatch opened, the occupants had only a short step to touch their feet onto the ground. From that very first shoe, a pale yellow silk slipper, Thor knew it was true. He had never seen this ship before, and could not recognize its origin, but the people alighting from it were Asgardians. _His_ people. As more emerged, he recognized two or three of them, from the ship they'd left Asgard in, and there, a metalworks trader he'd done business with a few times. The sun shone powerfully here, and their hands inevitably went to their eyes to shield them. But eventually, someone noticed him, and while he could pick out only a few familiar faces, he was well known to every single one of them.

The first man went to his knee, fist over his chest. Then the woman next to him. From them the gesture swept through them as a wave continually swelling and rolling in the ocean.

Thor started toward them. He didn't know what to say. His eye was still fixed on the hatch, where Asgardians still emerged, finding their exit crowded by their kneeling fellows. Finally there was a gap, then two others emerged. Thor didn't know their names, but recognized them, too, from Sakaar.

Still Thor waited. Someone was still on the ship; the engines were still on if throttled back to minimum, venting heated vapors out the back. Then that, too, ceased, and the ship fell quiet. He heard footsteps. He approached.

And there was Valkyrie.

Thor swallowed heavily, and forced a smile to his face.

/

* * *

/

"Your Majesty," Thor said, inclining his head in respect.

"Your Majesty," King M'Baku said, similarly inclining his head.

Thor did not fail to notice that M'Baku's gesture was slight compared to his own. M'Baku had been named king four months ago following contentious negotiations. Wakanda's traditional means of deciding on their rulers was no longer universally accepted, for reasons Thor didn't fully understand. A sacred flower imparting special abilities had been destroyed, and an outside challenge to the throne had resulted in significant changes in how Wakanda conducted itself amidst the other nations of Midgard. Princess Shuri had not sought the throne, preferring to remain focused on her other duties as there was no suitable replacement for her there, even though some were ready to break with tradition and have a woman on Wakanda's throne. Thor had not followed the developments closely, but had attended the ceremony acknowledging M'Baku as king, and afterward paid him an official visit to congratulate him and express his thanks for permitting him to remain in Wakanda.

M'Baku wore a harsh public face, then as now. He was wary of outsiders. Thor had taken little active interest in the land of his current residence, but he would have had to be blind not to notice that many Wakandans shared that sentiment.

"They are yours?"

"They are. May I impose further on your generosity, and ask that you grant them temporary asylum in Wakanda?"

M'Baku did not even blink. But Thor waited, patiently. His father, too, had worn a harsh public face, and often a harsh private one as well. His breath unexpectedly hitched in his chest.

"Fanya!" the Wakandan king called; one of the men standing in a row behind him stepped forward. "See that our guests from Asgard are provided with emergency provisions. And temporary housing."

"Thank you, Your Majesty. I am grateful. As are my people." The repetition of the word "temporary" could only have been deliberate, but it was a start.

/

* * *

/

"Do you need something to eat? I'm sure there's…something in here," Thor said, staring at the inside of the cooling machine which mostly held bottles.

"No. We were rationing, but we were doing all right."

"Good. In that case…." He opened up a cupboard then turned around with the largest unopened bottle of whiskey he had in hand and a grin on his face.

"Actually, I'd sworn off it, believe it or not," Val said, leaning over the jutting counter area that Jane called a bar. "Didn't seem appropriate."

"Val" or even "Valkyrie" wasn't her name, of course, but Thor had asked her once, not long after they'd left Asgard, and she'd refused to divulge her actual name, deciding instead to rename herself with the title she'd once run from, now in honor of each of her fallen sisters.

"Oh, well…I suppose it's for the best," Thor said, though even as he turned to put the bottle away he realized he could probably give her a run for her money now…almost.

"Don't be ridiculous. I _had_ sworn it off, and it seems _very_ appropriate now."

Thor shrugged and tossed her the bottle, which she caught effortlessly. "It's good to see you again. I didn't think I would."

"Is that so?" she asked, unscrewing the cap. "Because the look on your face when you saw me was a lot closer to disappointment than joy."

"I'm sorry," he said with a wince, both for having failed to mask his earlier reaction, and for how quickly Val set the empty bottle on the bar and wiped her mouth. "I had hoped…or…I had thought perhaps…"

A strong hand wrapped around his arm and tugged him over to the sofa. She swept an arm over the seat to knock aside a few empty bottles and they sat. "How many made it?"

"Half. Fewer now, many died in accidents and confusion and chaos afterward."

"No, I mean how many from Asgard?"

Thor's lips moved to echo her question, _how many_, but for a while no sound would come out. "None," he finally managed. "I am the only one. From Asgard, from Sakaar…"

She fell back against the cushion behind her, expression full of shock, quickly followed by anger, quickly followed by nothing at all.

"Banner made it off. Heimdall managed to send him here, well, to Midgard, but he's here in Wakanda now. Working with Jane and…a few others you haven't met yet. Some secret project." They hadn't told him, and he hadn't asked. He figured it probably had something to do with Thanos, but if they needed him, they knew he was ready and eager to reacquaint Stormbreaker with the mad Titan, wherever he was. Briefly, he told Val what happened on the ship, and what had followed. "What about you? How did you get here?"

"We fled, as ordered," she answered, voice bitter but fleetingly so. "It took us four days to find help. While the others worked on gathering provisions and took the injured to healers, a few of us took one of the pods back to the site of the attack. We heard when the distress signal stopped, but we thought…maybe. After that, we continued on, setting a rough course for Midgard. Then the plague – the snap? The snap hit. Half our people, gone. Men, women, young, old…just gone, disintegrated into ash. A few of the pods no longer had anyone on board who knew how to fly them, but we were able to instruct them or else fly the pods remotely. We came to an inhabited moon that granted our request to land. One of those pods without a pilot had a mechanical failure…the remote guidance also failed and the entire pod went up in an orange fireball."

Val paused to take a few deep breaths; Thor waited in silent horror, and wondered what his father would say now. Asgard is a people, not a place, Odin had impressed upon him. How many people had to be left to be able to say Asgard existed at all?

"It was tempting to give up," she said quietly, then looked up from her hands. "But we didn't. We consolidated onto fewer pods and sold the rest to pay for more provisions. We knew we needed to get a real ship, one that could fit everyone onboard. A few weeks later we made contact with a world that was willing to let us land and trade labor. Kipsis. Their society was falling apart, barely functioning, and Asgardian backs are strong. Eventually we were able to pay for that clunker we arrived in. It's all banged up but it got us here. And a signal is broadcasting from this area asking any Asgardians to make contact."

"It is?" He'd had no idea. He wondered who had done that. Jane, perhaps, or Banner or Stark. "How many of Asgard are left?"

"Eighty-eight."

His mouth fell open. He wondered at how he still had the capacity to be shocked. "There were more than that. Val, I saw them, I know there were more than that. Over a hundred."

"Eight-eight from Asgard, including me. Two who joined us in Sakaar. Twenty-six more who begged to come with us when we left Kipsis. Who were we to say no?"

"They weren't all…" But they'd bowed. They'd all bowed. Some hadn't even known who they were bowing to. "Eighty-eight," he whispered.

"Eighty-nine," Val said with a nudge of her chin toward him.

When she leaned far forward and clasped his hand in hers, then slid even closer to him, he looked up at her in confusion. Even if arousal faintly stirred deep inside him, this was the last thing on his mind right now.

"I don't know if this is the right thing to do or not. Let's be honest, my wires have been crossed on that one for a long time. But I think-"

"Val, I don't-"

"Just listen," she said, covering the other hand he'd raised with her free hand and pressing it against his leg before releasing it in an eerily familiar gesture. "I think you should know, when we went back to the site of the attack, a few days after…we found…"

Thor pulled his hand away and stood.

"We searched the debris. We found Loki's body."

He closed his eyes and shook his head.

"We took the body back to the lunar outpost. We gave him proper funeral rites there. It was, ah… It was nice. There was a lot of crying. And then stories. Poems. Then someone broke out a bottle of mead that had somehow been saved, and set aside for…I don't know. A special occasion someday. The last bottle of Asgardian mead left in the universe. It was poured into glasses a few drops at a time, and somehow it made it all the way around. I didn't even like him very much, your brother. But they did. It was nice," she repeated after a pause.

Thor wandered over to the balcony and stood there as the sky darkened and the thunder rolled and the clouds opened up and drenched him in the tears he did not shed.


	6. Chapter 6

_**No Other Choice**_

-6-

"_I think we have some catching up to do, Brother."_

_Thor turned to Loki, to tell him he had the oddest timing, but his bemused expression faded. Loki wasn't curious or concerned, as Thor was. Loki was terrified._

_Loki, too, turned, and Thor's stomach fell. "What's going on, Loki? You know this ship?"_

"_I'd begun to think this day wouldn't come."_

"_What day? Loki, no games. Are we in danger?"_

_Loki reached out, clasped his shoulder, and bored holes into him with his eyes. "This is the day I die, Brother."_

Thor's eyes flew open with a gasp. Breathing heavily, his gaze flickered around the room. He was in bed. Alone. Wakanda.

Val had dried him off and put him there, he remembered now. And he hadn't had nearly enough to drink beforehand to stave off the dreams. Loki hadn't told him that, of course, _"this is the day I die." _He hadn't spoken the words, but in Thor's memory, the expression on his face said it just as clearly. Loki had known what they would face that day. Because Loki knew Thanos. _"We don't have much time. Listen,"_ Loki had actually said.

"_That ship belongs to Thanos. I met him after I fell from the bifrost. When I attacked Midgard, it was on his behalf, to provide him with the Tesseract. It's an infinity stone, do you know of them?"_

"_Yes, the Water of Sight gave me a vision when-"_

"_He's trying to collect all six. He craves widespread death, and he'll use them to carry it out across the cosmos on a scale you can't imagine. We have to stop him."_

"_All right. We'll stop him. Loki…if he is what you say, why were you helping him get the Tesseract? And the mind stone, you had it when-"_

"Yes_, I know. But I didn't know they were infinity stones then. I didn't know it was part of a larger plan. If I had…it doesn't matter now."_

"_If you didn't know then, how do you know now?"_

"_I researched it. I ruled Asgard for two years, Thor. I didn't spend _all_ my time in my bathrobe eating grapes and watching theater." A hint of fondness flickered through the tension in Loki's face._

_An image of Heimdall came to life beside them and it was gone. "Your Majesty, we've attempted to contact the ship that has fallen in alongside us but we've received no response."_

"_Loki, is that ship armed?"_

"_Heavily."_

_Thor nodded, mind racing. He hadn't had time yet to fully familiarize himself with his own ship, but he'd been told it was a long-haul transport vessel, with defenses meant to hold off pirates, not to engage in extended battle._

"_The lifepods, Thor. You have to evacuate this ship."_

"_Evacuate? The other ship hasn't actually done anything yet. I didn't even know we _had_ lifepods."_

"_I've been on the ship longer. I'm telling you, you need to evacuate."_

"_Heimdall…prepare the people to evacuate to the lifepods. But don't launch them unless I say. Loki, whatever he wants…we don't have it. The Aether and the Tesseract were destroyed on-"_

"_I had the Aether sent away to a place called Knowhere, a man known as the Collector. I thought it best not to have two on Asgard. Only the Tesseract was-"_

"_Fine. It doesn't matter. Either way, we don't have what he's looking for. All we have to do is convince him of that. Then, we get to Midgard as fast as we can. They need to know of the danger. Heimdall, anything? I need to talk to Thanos."_

_The ghostly image of Heimdall interrupted himself from whatever message he was delivering to unseen people on the deck below where Thor and Loki stood. "Still no acknowledgement of our signal, Your Majesty."_

"_Asgardians."_

_The voice filled the room, even coming only through the projection link Heimdall was using from the command center. Thor met Loki's gaze again; his brother almost trembled from the tension stiffening his body. He knew without asking that it was the voice of Thanos. "Come on," he urged, setting off at a run to join Heimdall. There was a second or two of delay, but Thor heard Loki's footsteps pounding behind his, just as the voice continued._

"_I thank you for your kind greetings. Now that we've gotten the pleasantries out of the way, let's get down to business. I had a little arrangement, you see, with a schemer among you who isn't Asgardian at all. He turned out to be such a disappointment, though. He failed to hold up his end of our bargain, despite what I did for him. Since I couldn't depend on him, I've come to collect what's owed to me myself."_

_Thor signaled Heimdall, who nodded. "I am Thor, Son of Odin and King of-"_

"_I know who you are. And hello again, Loki. It's good to see you at long last. Now, simply jettison the Tesseract through any of your exhaust ports. Do so immediately, and I will allow you to live."_

_Thor bristled at the demand but knew he had to try to keep the peace. He had children in his care, and few weapons or warriors with which to defend them should it come to a fight. "There is no Tess-"_

_When Thor next opened his eyes, he was lying on the ground, half on top of Loki who was pushing him off and struggling to stand. His ears were ringing and it took a couple of seconds for his vision to come back into focus. He got to his feet along with everyone else around him, and looked out at the giant viewscreen. "Is that…the other half of our ship?" He could see its skeletal structure, in the parts of it that were exposed, where it had once been attached to the front half that he stood in. His eyes focused on something smaller floating near it…a body…_

"_Thor, I have a-"_

"_A smaller ship is approaching!" Heimdall shouted, interrupting Loki. "We have no shields, no way to stop them from boarding."_

_The decision took less than a second. "Everyone to the lifepods who can make it there." He turned back to Loki, whose face grew hard and cold before his eyes._

"_I'm staying. I have to stay."_

He'd ordered Val and a handful of the few remaining experienced warriors to go with those able to evacuate and protect them at all cost.

Heimdall had stayed to fight. And died.

Loki had stayed to fight. And died.

/

* * *

/

"Wakanda has never accepted refugees," M'Baku said, looking down aloofly at the Asgardian who stood before him. Not Wakandan, not African, not even human. It seemed with every passing day Wakanda was less _Wakandan_. And some days, he wished to retreat back to his Jabari tribal lands where the air was pleasingly cool and fresh and unchanged. But he had sought this position he now held. Not now, it was true, and not in the way it had happened. But he _had_ sought it, and now he had it, and he was ready for it, even if he wasn't always ready for all of the changes. Unchanged Jabariland was a fiction, anyway. Half of the Jabari were gone, too. Half of those remaining after the battle against Thanos and his army. His own wife was gone.

"I understand, Your Majesty. And we will seek asylum elsewhere if we must, without complaint. But my people are eager to put down roots. To make a new home. They're strong, and they bring many skills with them. Some have tilled the land, some are builders, or artists, or teachers, or merchants. They are eager to fulfill whatever role they are most needed in, here in Wakanda. They cannot replace what you have lost...what is lost cannot be replaced…but perhaps they can help."

"Wakanda does not need their help."

Thor looked to the ground, then slowly nodded and rose to his feet. "Will you grant us time to prepare for departure to another location?"

"No. I haven't ordered you to depart. In fact, I am going to grant your request."

Thor let out a surprised breath. "Thank you, Your Majesty."

"Some of our villages weren't viable after The Snap. They were abandoned. Our rural development planners will work with your people to determine a suitable village for you to repopulate. Wakanda will aid your resettlement, and you will contribute to Wakanda as you are able."

"I am in your debt. I…." Thor drifted off, gaze wandering. And then he started laughing. "Your debt. I just realized…I have no way to repay a debt."

M'Baku made no effort to hide his grimace, and Thor finally ceased the laughter that seemed to skirt the edge of madness. "There is one condition."

"Name it," the Asgardian answered immediately, sober once again.

"You will train with the Jabari warriors. Hear me on this. Wakanda recognizes you as king of your people. But when you train, you will take your orders from the Jabari."

"Yes, gladly," he said without hesitation, though M'Baku saw the confusion on his face.

"They will train you hard."

"I know no other way."

"Good. You may go. My people will be in touch with you soon."

Thor took his leave.

"What kind of king is that?"

"Your Majesty?" Okoye prompted, stepping up to her new king's side from where she had held post nearby.

They were alone now, and he could speak his mind. He trusted Okoye like he trusted few others outside the Jabari tribe. "This man could not lead a group of schoolchildren. What kind of king is that?"

"The kind who's watched his entire family die and whose kingdom has been reduced to just eighty-eight straggling survivors. For what it's worth…it was kind of you to grant them a home here."

"I am a kind man," M'Baku responded in a gruffly defensive voice, before cracking a smile. "What would T'Challa have decided?"

"A year ago? He would have refused. Today? I'm certain he would have made the same decision you did."

M'Baku nodded in thought. His opinions were his own; in forming them he did not concern himself with his predecessor's preferences. But he liked to ask Okoye these things, and turn them over in his mind. "Much has changed from a year ago."

"It has. If I may ask…why do you want the Asgardian king to train with the Jabari?"

"Because I have to feed my people."

Okoye cocked her head; M'Baku stood and sauntered over to the floor-to-ceiling glass. A storm was just clearing.

"Our agriculture is built around a cycle of two rainy seasons every year, and two dry seasons. He has been giving us a third rainy season." He turned back to Okoye. "A distraction may preserve our next harvest."

* * *

_Notes_

Stating the obvious here, but please, please, please, not a word about Avengers: Endgame in reviews, not until it's been out for a couple of weeks. Many of us (like yours truly) want zero spoilers. I've stopped watching even Marvel's official released clips. I don't know about you, but I CAN'T WAIT!

BTW, I absolutely *loved* Okoye and M'Baku in _Black Panther_. Every time I saw them I wanted to see them more. So I tried my hand at writing them a bit. :-)


	7. Chapter 7

_**No Other Choice**_

-7-

_Two months later_

The conference room held more people now, but it still felt large and empty. Tony stood and went over to the bar to grab a handful of Cheetos and another bourbon. Natasha had restocked them nicely on her last trip to New York.

The din hadn't dulled in the slightest by the time he returned to his seat.

When it was just the three of them – him, Shuri, and Bruce – they'd argued. Jane was no shrinking violet, and when she'd joined them – more arguing. Convincing Scott Lang to join them along with Hope Van Dyne had been a game-changer, but had also resulted in an instantaneous doubling of the length of every one of their already long meetings, with the constant distractions and the fact that it turned out Lang knew more about the particular applied science of breaking and entering than about science per se. Still, it had been manageable. Now… Tony looked at the other end of the table and gave Steve a pointed look. The closest Steve got to being a scientist was being a science _experiment_, but he wasn't bad at meeting facilitation, so when they got together for the bigger and broader group discussions, the more strategic meetings, Steve always came, too.

Steve looked annoyed – he was probably tired of having to do this, and truth be told, they were _all_ tired, and in various stages of crankiness, but Tony also saw the resolve on his face and knew things would be back under control soon.

"All right, everyone, that's enough," he said, voice firm and commanding enough to convince anyone listening to think he was a general, despite the "Captain America" moniker he still bore from World War II. "I know we're coming to a critical decision point, but this isn't helping us get there. Tony, why don't you restate the problem for us all, and then let's go around the room. Everyone gets to speak his piece, all right? No interrupting. Save your comments for after."

"What about me? I don't get to speak my piece? Only the facts?"

"Of course you, too, Tony. But since when do you stick with only the facts?"

Tony's brow went up a bit at that as those who'd still been arguing stopped, but he didn't respond. The rift between him and Steve had faded into the background once they had bigger fish to fry, but sometimes when tensions rose they – and anyone else who happened to be around them – were reminded that those tensions were still there. Tony was glad Steve survived. But he wasn't sad that the Winter Soldier hadn't.

"Okay," he said. "For right now, let's assume we've got all the science and technology and magic and mystery worked out. We don't, but we're close. Assume it's all in place, tested, safe. The question is, what then? We're looking at infinity, and we're at a point where we have to start thinking about exactly what we do with the ability. What is our goal, and how do we effect that goal? Who do we need to be involved? And where? And when?" He paused. "I should have said, 'the questions _are_.'"

"Scott?" Steve prompted.

"This part's on you guys. If you come up with a goal, I can help get us there. And if you need something lifted, I'm your guy. Not…not _Captain America_ kind of lifted, although…actually, I can do that, too," he said, breaking off for a short-lived grin. "But I mean the stolen kind of lifted."

"Yeah, Jiminy Cricket, we got it, keep going," Tony said.

"Jiminy Cricket, really? What do ants have to do with crickets?"

"Just keep going, Scott," Steve said.

"The thing is, you have to know your mark. You don't break into a place without understanding as much as you can about what you're taking, who you're taking it from, where you're taking it from," Scott said, ticking off his fingers as he went. "We need information, and not the kind you can get from Google or the library or a prison network. No need for that look, Rogers."

"No look. I don't think this is the time to be picky about our sources."

"Sorry. I was anticipating."

"I gave you a look," Hope said.

"My point is, we need somebody who already has as much understanding of all this as possible. I think our best candidate is Jane. She had an infinity stone…or infinity gas inside her."

"Shut up, Tony," Jane said as Tony smirked.

"I said nothing. Stop anticipating."

"You were-"

"Okay, okay," Scott said, cutting off the tense astrophysicist. "Sorry, Jane, that didn't come out quite right. But Jane is the only person here who actually had one of these things become a part of her. That's a level of interaction no one else has ever had."

"Vision did," Natasha said, quietly.

For a long moment, no one spoke.

"No one who's still alive," Scott clarified soberly.

"Jane has been invaluable to this project," Hope, sitting to Scott's right, said after another moment of silence. "I don't mean to minimize that at all," she continued, meeting Jane's eyes, across the table. "But I don't think she's the right person for this particular job. We're talking about dangerous scenarios here. We can't send anybody to do it who doesn't have some kind of… _extra _means of self-defense. And attacking, if necessary."

"You think it should be you?" Rhodey asked.

"I think I could do it. I don't 'know the mark,' as Scott so quaintly put it, not the way some of you do, but then, none of us knows _all_ the marks. But I have the most maneuverability of anyone here. And I can _learn_ the marks."

"I don't think you have as much maneuverability as you expect," Shuri put in. "We know from Jane that the Reality Stone exists as a transitional substance in its natural state, with characteristics of both gas and liquid, but that its state can also be changed to solid. We have no other knowledge about the ability of the Infinity Stones to change states, or sizes. We can't assume they'll behave the same as humans and everyday objects. I'm not certain what would happen if you tried to shrink one, or push it through the quantum realm. It's a risk I don't think we should take, not if we have other options."

"What do you see as the other options?" Natasha asked.

Shuri shook her head. "I don't know." She looked down for a moment. "It should be my brother. I know he could do this. But whoever goes…I can prepare a vibranium suit that would provide a high level of protection even for someone who isn't accustomed to fighting," she said with a nod to Jane, "and at least _some_ protection from potentially unstable Infinity Stones. But I agree with Hope that an experienced fighter would be best."

Tony – and everyone else – turned to Steve, to Shuri's right at the end of the table.

"I guess I'm the most experienced fighter at the table. And I'm pretty durable. But Thanos knocked me out cold. Now maybe, if we find a way to play this right, nobody goes toe to toe with Thanos, and that doesn't matter. I've also had more experience with the Tesseract than anyone else here…at least if we're counting being around it as experience. But there's an elephant in this room, or rather one that's _not_ in this room. Thor should be here."

"I'm going to just nip that one in the bud," Tony said, speaking over a few muttering voices. "Let's face it. Thor's doing one of three things right now. Jabari boot camp on steroids, continuing his dedication to scientific inquiry into how much Earth booze an Asgardian has to drink in order to get sloshed, or sleeping. Sorry, Jane."

"No need to apologize," Jane said. "That seems…accurate."

"And you don't think he could get right back in the game if we needed him? If we needed him for _this_?" Steve asked.

"I've only seen him a couple of times," Rhodey said, "but I think he's unstable. Erratic. We're going to need someone who can keep a cool head, and make tough decisions under a lot of pressure."

"I agree," Natasha said. "His emotions are overwhelming him. He's not in great condition right now."

Steve nodded. "Okay. What if someone goes with him? Does this have to be a one-man operation? Or one-woman?"

"My turn?"

"Sure, go ahead, Natasha."

"It doesn't have to be, not all of it. But I think it's ideal. Whoever does this is going to have to be stealthy, too. Agile. That's easiest when it's just one person, slipping in, and slipping out."

"Natasha is correct," Shuri said. "And I suspect that stealth is not one of Thor's greatest strengths, even if he _was_ in top condition."

"You're not wrong there," Tony said, noticing that Steve nodded.

"If Shuri got me one of those suits, I could do it," Natasha said. "I'm obviously no match for Thanos, but I can fight. And maybe what we need isn't so much a fighter as a spy. Like I said, slip in, do what needs to be done, slip out."

"We're getting ahead of ourselves here," Rhodey said. "We don't even have a plan yet. And if I understood you all right at the last little round robin here, we aren't certain how time travel through the quantum realm works. Why are we so focused on who's going to carry out a plan that doesn't exist?"

"We don't have to do it that way," Tony said. "We're following up on what Scott said about knowing a mark. It's not a bad place to start, though. If we can think this through now, then maybe we tailor the plan to the person."

"I don't know," Rhodey said, shaking his head. "Sounds like the chicken-or-the-egg problem. But from that perspective, okay, we've got Jane, yes. But I don't see how we can send a civilian into something like this, no matter what the details of the plan are. And we need Jane _here_. We've got Nebula. Not really a civilian, knows Thanos better than anyone else here, but at this point she doesn't know anything more about the Infinity Stones than the rest of us."

"Not to mention she's not exactly a team player," Steve said. "She refused to come to this meeting."

"Not to mention she kind of creeps me out. Do you know how long I was stuck in a spaceship alone with her? I started making a game of trying to get her to say something, anything, and she finally did. She threatened to kill me."

"That's strange, I think I'm starting to feel some sympathy for her," Natasha said, following it up with an upward twitch of her lips, just long enough to know Tony had seen it.

"Nebula's definitely not a team player, but if we know nothing else about her, we know she hates Thanos, right, Tony?" Rhodey asked.

"No doubts there. And, you know, she only _threatened_ to kill me. Didn't follow through, obviously. Didn't even make any attempts."

"Okay. I think that's worth keeping in mind at least. We've also got Wong, who's pretty familiar with the Time Stone, even if he's never used it himself."

"Wong won't leave the New York Sanctum undefended. He'll help us when he can, but I don't think he'd be our point person," Tony said.

"I get that, Tony, I'm just trying to name the possibilities we haven't talked about."

"Okay. Any more?"

"Yeah. One more," Rhodey said, and when he hesitated, and glanced toward Natasha, Tony knew who he had in mind. "Barton. Not a civilian. No super-human strength, but Shuri could give him a suit. He never met Thanos, but he's pretty familiar with the Space Stone…and the Mind Stone."

"I told you all what he said when I asked him to join us in Wakanda," Natasha said.

"But if we truly needed him…don't you think he'd come?" Steve asked.

"He was pretty adamant."

"Look," Scott said, "if anything happens to him, his surviving kids become orphans, okay? It changes your perspective on things."

Tony swallowed hard and looked away. It _did_ change your perspective. And Scott would know. His ex and the ex's husband had both died in The Snap. Steve had had a hard time convincing him to come out here, and he'd outright refused if his daughter couldn't come with him. Kids deserve stability, he'd said, and he was determined to do his best to give it to her. Stability wasn't something Tony had a lot of experience with in his life, though, and he'd turned out all right. Sort of. Some days. "Barton stays on the periphery. We don't go to him again unless we see no other alternative. Jane? Your name's come up a lot, but you haven't said much. Not like you."

"I don't know what to say. I think we have to figure out first if we're going to fight Thanos, or outsmart him. If we're going to fight him, then yeah, the training Okoye set me up with obviously isn't going to get me very far. If we're going to outsmart him…I'm game. I don't think there's any risk too great, or any price too high. As for the Aether, the Reality Stone…I don't have any special understanding of it, from a scientific perspective, beyond what I've already told you. But I know what it feels like, when it's…inside you, and when it's nearby. I experienced some of its power. If any of that's helpful, like I said, I'll do whatever's needed. I think we could at least figure out how to contain the Aether, before Thanos ever gets to it. But maybe all we need to do is get a warning to somebody. Somebody who could stop all this before it ever got started. Maybe we get a warning to Thor. Before he…"

"Before he gets broken?" Bruce asked from his place between Jane and Tony, the last one left to speak.

Jane nodded and said nothing further. She had been a critical addition to their science team, and had gone about her newly refocused work efficiently and with all the creativity Shuri had correctly insisted they needed, burning the midnight oil right along with everyone else. But she wasn't the same feisty, optimistic firebrand he'd met before. Something inside her had died. It was hard to watch.

"Bruce?" Steve prompted.

"I think it's worth restating part of the problem here. We're talking about time travel. We're talking about a dangerous mission that involves using Pym Particles, shrinking down enough to enter the quantum realm, then reemerging from it at the right time and place to take some undefined action or actions intended to change our reality. Whoever does this has to be able to handle the technology, and have the focus and concentration of a master of the mystic arts. And whatever the plan is, in the end, I think we all know there's a good chance it won't be that simple. There's too much room for error. Whoever goes has to be prepared to deal with the unexpected, a natural at adapting to changing circumstance. I mean, ideally, we'd send all of us. Each one of us holds some piece of this puzzle, or has some unique skill or ability. But even if we managed to put together enough of Dr. Pym's suits, _without_ Dr. Pym's help…the quantum realm isn't a place for group field trips. Field trips particularly stealthy, either. For that matter, although you know I'm ready to do whatever I can, too…it's probably not a place for the Other Guy. Even if he _hadn't_ been so unreliable ever since the attack on the Asgardian ship. Here's a new thought, though. What if the best point person, the person who best knows the mark…is someone we've already lost? Could we go back and get that person, as a first step? Bring them to the present, our present, bring them in on the project?"

"Vision," Steve said immediately. "Vision's the only one of us other than Jane who's had an Infinity Stone be a part of him. Can we really do that, though? Bring someone…basically back to life?"

"It wouldn't be bringing anyone back to life," Tony said. "It would be bringing someone from his time period, when he _is_ alive, to ours, temporarily. Then back to his to fix history. But I'm not sure if Vision gets us anything that warrants an extra mind trip through the quantum realm. He didn't have any actual understanding of the Mind Stone, it was just part of him. Kind of like how having a beating heart doesn't mean you know anything about cardiology. Collectively Shuri and Bruce and I know more about the Mind Stone than Vis did."

"What about Dr. Strange?" Hope asked. "The Time Stone. If we brought him back…couldn't he just undo everything with the Time Stone?"

Tony shook his head to that. "That can't be the answer. The _Book of Cagliostro_ is pretty clear – I can't believe I just said that – pretty clear on the fact that the Time Stone's effects are local. You can't turn back the clock on the whole universe with it. And I told you what the doc said on Titan. What he did. What he _didn't_ do. He could have hit the rewind button at any time, and he didn't. There has to be a reason for that. We don't involve Dr. Strange and the rewind button."

"Wanda?" Natasha asked. "I'm not sure we ever knew the extent of her abilities. I'm not sure _she_ did. She actually managed to hold off Thanos."

"Did she know how to _control_ her abilities?" Rhodey asked. "Isn't that how we wound up with the Sokovia Accords?"

"Not a good idea to go there," Natasha said.

"I'm not going there. But putting all this in Wanda's hands would invite a whole new level of risk."

"True," Tony said. "_Also_ true that this whole concept could be titled _Risk_. If that name wasn't already taken."

"None of those were actually who I had in mind."

Tony, and everyone else, turned back to Bruce. "Okay, who?"

"You're not going to like this," he said, throwing a flickering glance Jane's way.

"I'm not going to like it if I have to ask again."

"Tony," Steve reprimanded.

"Well?" Tony said to Bruce, ignoring Steve.

"Loki."

Tony glanced around the room. "I'm sorry, I think I need to get my ears checked. Wax build-up, maybe? Because I could swear you just said…nope. I'm sure I heard wrong."

"Yeah, Tony. I said Loki. Look, there's _nobody_ else with the complete package. Loki has experience with not one, not even two, but _three_ Infinity Stones: Space, Mind, and Reality. He knows Thanos more than anyone here, except Nebula. He's got the superhuman thing like Thor, so he should be able to handle an unstable Infinity Stone, or an Infinity Stone period – remember, Jane said the Reality Stone can infect you if you touch it, and Rocket said touching the Power Stone is guaranteed death unless your father's…a planet or something. Let's just go with 'superhuman.' He's adaptable. He's smart. He's-"

"He's not _that_ smart. I duped him pretty easily," Natasha said with a hard look in her eyes.

"You're smarter," Bruce allowed. "But he _is_ smart. He understands magic way better than any of us, no matter how many of Wong's books we read. There is _no_ one better equipped to navigate the quantum realm, maybe in the entire universe. And he knows how to fight."

"You wiped the floor with him," Natasha said.

"And Thor said Thanos killed him," Jane piped up. "He didn't do any better against Thanos than you did, than the Hulk did."

"He didn't know what was coming. We could change that."

"Since we're throwing out counterpoints," Tony said, "I think I'll toss this out there. He's _Loki_. In case you all were power-napping through that part."

"Tony…"

"_Jane_…"

"Maybe we should consider it."

"I'm sorry, have you lost your mind?"

"Tony, let her speak," Steve said.

"I'm not stopping anyone from speaking. I'm just pointing out that Jane might have lost her mind. This is the guy that tried to conquer our planet. _For_ Thanos. The guy who killed a bunch of people in New York, who forced people to bow to him in Germany. Who took over people's minds, including Erik Selvig's, Jane. So forgive me if don't just nod and say okay when Loki's name gets tossed in the hat."

"I haven't forgotten what he did then," Jane said. "But I haven't forgotten what he did later, either. He saved my life. He pushed me out of the way of this…gravity grenade thing, and it would have killed him in my place if Thor hadn't gotten there in time and saved _him_."

Bruce nodded. "And every single surviving Asgardian will tell you the only reason any of them are still alive is because Loki came back with a ship to evacuate them. Nobody made him do that."

"You think Loki's turned over a new leaf, then?" Steve asked.

"Sounds more like you think he's turned into a saint," Tony grumbled.

"He's not a saint," Bruce quickly disagreed. "He's…conflicted. That's probably a good word for it. Tony, you remember when I said his mind was like a bag of cats? Yeah, a few of the cats might still be in there. And he might've been working with Thanos back when he first showed up on Earth. But they aren't friends. And Loki wouldn't have wanted this to happen."

Natasha nodded; nobody missed the reluctance in it. "Loki wanted recognition. He wanted to impress. He wanted everyone to know what he accomplished. I don't think he wanted to wipe out half the population of the universe."

Tony noticed Steve nodding down at the opposite end of the table and frowned. "You're buying into this, too?"

"I'm not buying into anything. I don't claim to understand Loki. But you said it yourself, Tony. That he wanted to beat us and be seen doing it. That he wanted an audience. And…what did you say? A parade? And a monument built to the skies with his name on it?"

"Killing half the audience would have defeated his purpose," Natasha said.

"I don't know this guy. Never met him," Scott said. "He sounds pretty untrustworthy, but a lot of people would say the same about me. A lot of people _have_ said the same about me. It does sound like he knows the mark, though, and maybe better than anyone else. Both Thanos, and the stones. That's worth a lot. Combine that with the superhuman blah-blah-blah…seems like a strong candidate."

"All right, all right, fine. We put Loki on the list for consideration. Can we move on now?" Tony asked. He wasn't capitulating; he just didn't want to talk about Loki anymore. Better to start discussing the possible ways they might actually use time travel to fix this mess Thanos had left them with, now that they'd talked about the different people who could actually carry it out. Because they definitely were not dragging Loki out of the past, back into a present where he no longer existed.

/

* * *

_Notes_

Just wanted to mention, this chapter was written at the same time as the previous chapters, quite a while before Endgame came out. I'll let you know when we get to stuff written post-Endgame, just for posterity's sake, I suppose. I'm not changing anything in the story plan (this one is fairly tightly planned, except for one section which is more of the "fill out the skeleton" type). What I most regret here with regard to Endgame is Nebula. I loved her in Endgame, and I wish I could write that Nebula instead. But, oh well. Different situation, different Nebula. Also, this chapter is significantly longer than the previous ones just because it didn't make sense to split it in two. Gaps between chapters for this story will continue to be long...sorry.


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